Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22,
2002) was an American animator, filmmaker, cartoonist, author, artist,
and screenwriter, best known for his work with
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Cartoons
on the
Looney TunesLooney Tunes and
Merrie MelodiesMerrie Melodies shorts. He wrote, produced,
and/or directed many classic animated cartoon shorts starring Bugs
Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Pepé Le Pew,
Porky Pig, Michigan J. Frog, the Three Bears, and a slew of other
Warner characters.
After his career at
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. ended in 1962, Jones started Sib
Tower 12 Productions, and began producing cartoons for
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including a new series of
Tom and JerryTom and Jerry shorts
and the television adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole
Christmas!. He later started his own studio,
Chuck JonesChuck Jones Enterprises,
which created several one-shot specials, and periodically worked on
Looney TunesLooney Tunes related works.
Jones was nominated for an Oscar eight times and won three times,
receiving awards for the cartoons For Scent-imental Reasons, So Much
for So Little, and The Dot and the Line. He received an Honorary
Academy Award in 1996 for his work in the animation industry. Film
historian
Leonard MaltinLeonard Maltin has praised Jones' work at Warner Bros., MGM
and
Chuck JonesChuck Jones Enterprises. He also said that the "feud" that there
may have been between Jones and colleague
Bob ClampettBob Clampett was mainly
because they were so different from each other. In Jerry Beck's The 50
Greatest Cartoons, ten of the entries were directed by Jones, with
four out of the five top cartoons being Jones shorts.

Early life[edit]
Jones was born on September 21, 1912, in Spokane, Washington, the son
of Mabel McQuiddy (Martin) and Charles Adams Jones.[1] He later moved
with his parents and three siblings to the Los Angeles, California
area.[2]
In his autobiography, Chuck Amuck, Jones credits his artistic bent to
circumstances surrounding his father, who was an unsuccessful
businessman in California in the 1920s. His father, Jones recounts,
would start every new business venture by purchasing new stationery
and new pencils with the company name on them. When the business
failed, his father would quietly turn the huge stacks of useless
stationery and pencils over to his children, requiring them to use up
all the material as fast as possible. Armed with an endless supply of
high-quality paper and pencils, the children drew constantly. Later,
in one art school class, the professor gravely informed the students
that they each had 100,000 bad drawings in them that they must first
get past before they could possibly draw anything worthwhile. Jones
recounted years later that this pronouncement came as a great relief
to him, as he was well past the 200,000 mark, having used up all that
stationery. Jones and several of his siblings went on to artistic
careers.[3][4]
During his artistic education, he worked part-time as a janitor. After
graduating from Chouinard Art Institute, Jones got a phone call from a
friend named Fred Kopietz, who had been hired by the
Ub IwerksUb Iwerks studio
and offered him a job. He worked his way up in the animation industry,
starting as a cel washer; "then I moved up to become a painter in
black and white, some color. Then I went on to take animator's
drawings and traced them onto the celluloid. Then I became what they
call an in-betweener, which is the guy that does the drawing between
the drawings the animator makes".[5] While at Iwerks, he met a cel
painter named Dorothy Webster, who later became his first wife.[6]
Warner Bros.[edit]
See also:
Chuck JonesChuck Jones filmography
Jones joined
Leon SchlesingerLeon Schlesinger Productions, the independent studio that
produced
Looney TunesLooney Tunes and
Merrie MelodiesMerrie Melodies for Warner Bros., in 1933 as
an assistant animator. In 1935, he was promoted to animator, and
assigned to work with new Schlesinger director Tex Avery. There was no
room for the new Avery unit in Schlesinger's small studio, so Avery,
Jones, and fellow animators Bob Clampett, Virgil Ross, and Sid
Sutherland were moved into a small adjacent building they dubbed
"Termite Terrace". When Clampett was promoted to director in 1937,
Jones was assigned to his unit; the Clampett unit was briefly assigned
to work with Jones' old employer,
Ub IwerksUb Iwerks when Iwerks subcontracted
four cartoons to Schlesinger in 1937. Jones became a director (or
"supervisor", the original title for an animation director in the
studio) himself in 1938 when
Frank TashlinFrank Tashlin left the studio. The
following year Jones created his first major character, Sniffles, a
cute Disney-style mouse, who went on to star in twelve Warner Bros.
cartoons.[7]
He was actively involved in efforts to unionize the staff of Leon
Schlesinger Studios. He was responsible for recruiting animators,
layout men, and background people. Almost all animators joined, in
reaction to salary cuts imposed by Leon Schlesinger. The
Metro-Goldwyn-MayerMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio had already signed a union
contract, encouraging their counterparts under Schlesinger.[8] In a
meeting with his staff, Schlesinger talked for a few minutes, then
turned over the meeting to his attorney. His insulting manner had a
unifying effect on the staff. Jones gave a pep talk at the union
headquarters. As negotiations broke down, the staff decided to go on
strike. Schlesinger locked them out of the studio for a few days,
before agreeing to sign the contract.[8] A Labor Management Committee
was formed and Jones served as a moderator. Because of his role as a
supervisor in the studio, he could not himself join the union.[8]
Jones created many of his lesser-known characters during this period,
including Charlie Dog, Hubie and Bertie, and The Three Bears.[citation
needed]

During World War II, Jones worked closely with Theodor Geisel, better
known as Dr. Seuss, to create the
Private SnafuPrivate Snafu series of Army
educational cartoons (the character was created by director Frank
Capra). Jones later collaborated with Seuss on animated adaptations of
Seuss' books, including
How the Grinch Stole Christmas!How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in 1966. Jones
directed such shorts as The Weakly Reporter, a 1944 short that related
to shortages and rationing on the home front. During the same year, he
directed Hell-Bent for Election, a campaign film for Franklin D.
Roosevelt.[9]
Jones created characters through the late 1940s and the 1950s, which
include Claude Cat, Marc Antony and Pussyfoot, Charlie Dog, Michigan
J. Frog, and his four most popular creations, Marvin the Martian,
Pepé Le Pew, Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner. Jones and writer
Michael Maltese collaborated on the Road Runner cartoons, Duck Amuck,
One Froggy Evening, and What's Opera, Doc?. Other staff at Unit A that
Jones collaborated with include layout artist, background designer,
co-director Maurice Noble; animator and co-director Abe Levitow; and
animators
Ken HarrisKen Harris and Ben Washam.
Jones remained at
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. throughout the 1950s, except for a
brief period in 1953 when Warner closed the animation studio. During
this interim, Jones found employment at
Walt DisneyWalt Disney Productions, where
he teamed with
Ward KimballWard Kimball for a four-month period of uncredited work
on Sleeping Beauty (1959). Upon the reopening of the Warner animation
department, Jones was rehired and reunited with most of his
unit.[citation needed]
In the early 1960s, Jones and his wife Dorothy wrote the screenplay
for the animated feature Gay Purr-ee. The finished film would feature
the voices of Judy Garland,
Robert GouletRobert Goulet and
Red ButtonsRed Buttons as cats in
Paris, France. The feature was produced by UPA and directed by his
former
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. collaborator, Abe Levitow.
Jones moonlighted to work on the film since he had an exclusive
contract with
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. UPA completed the film and made it
available for distribution in 1962; it was picked up by Warner Bros.
When
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. discovered that Jones had violated his exclusive
contract with them, they terminated him.[10] Jones' former animation
unit was laid off after completing the final cartoon in their
pipeline, The Iceman Ducketh, and the rest of the Warner Bros.
Cartoons studio was closed in early 1963.[10]
Post-Warner Bros.[edit]
With business partner Les Goldman, Jones started an independent
animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions, and brought on most of his
unit from Warner Bros., including
Maurice Noble and Michael Maltese.
In 1963,
Metro-Goldwyn-MayerMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer contracted with Sib Tower 12 to have
Jones and his staff produce new
Tom and JerryTom and Jerry cartoons as well as a
television adaptation of all
Tom and JerryTom and Jerry theatricals produced to
that date. This included major editing, including writing out the
African-American maid, Mammy Two-Shoes, and replacing her with one of
Irish descent voiced by June Foray. In 1964, Sib Tower 12 was absorbed
by MGM and was renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts. His animated short
film, The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics, won the
1965 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Jones directed the
classic animated short The Bear That Wasn't.[9]
As the
Tom and JerryTom and Jerry series wound down (it was discontinued in 1967),
Jones produced more for television. In 1966, he produced and directed
the TV special How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, featuring the voice
and facial models based on the readings by Boris Karloff.[11]
Jones continued to work on other TV specials such as Horton Hears a
Who! (1970), but his main focus during this time was producing the
feature film The Phantom Tollbooth, which did lukewarm business when
MGM released it in 1970. Jones co-directed 1969's The Pogo Special
Birthday Special, based on the
Walt KellyWalt Kelly comic strip, and voiced the
characters of Porky Pine and Bun Rab. It was at this point that he
decided to start ST Incorporated.[9]
MGM closed the animation division in 1970, and Jones once again
started his own studio,
Chuck JonesChuck Jones Enterprises. He produced a
Saturday morning children's TV series for the American Broadcasting
Company called The
Curiosity Shop in 1971. In 1973, he produced an
animated version of the George Selden book The Cricket in Times Square
and would go on to produce two sequels.[9]
Three of his works during this period were animated TV adaptations of
short stories from Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli's Brothers, The White Seal
and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. During this period, Jones began to experiment
with more realistically designed characters, most of which having
larger eyes, leaner bodies, and altered proportions, such as those of
the
Looney TunesLooney Tunes characters.[citation needed]
Jones resumed working with
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. in 1976 with the animated TV
adaptation of The Carnival of the Animals with
Bugs BunnyBugs Bunny and Daffy
Duck. Jones also produced the 1979 film The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner
Movie which was a compilation of Jones' best theatrical shorts; Jones
produced new Road Runner shorts for
The Electric CompanyThe Electric Company series and
Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas TalesBugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979), and even newer shorts were
made for
Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over (1980).[9]
From 1977–1978, Jones wrote and drew the newspaper comic strip
Crawford (also known as Crawford & Morgan) for the Chicago
Tribune-NY News Syndicate. In 2011
IDW PublishingIDW Publishing collected Jones'
strip as part of their Library of American Comic Strips.[12]
In 1978, Jones' wife Dorothy died; three years later, he married
Marian Dern, the writer of the comic strip Rick O'Shay.[12]
Jones–Avery letter[edit]
On December 11, 1975,[13] shortly after the release of Bugs Bunny
Superstar, which prominently featured Bob Clampett, Jones wrote a
letter to Tex Avery, accusing Clampett of taking credit for ideas that
were not his, and for characters created by other directors (notably
Jones's
SnifflesSniffles and Friz Freleng's Yosemite Sam). Their
correspondence was never published in the media. It was forwarded to
Michael Barrier, who conducted the interview with Clampett and was
distributed by Jones to multiple people concerned with animation over
the years.
Robert McKimsonRobert McKimson claimed in an interview that many animators
but mostly Clampett contributed to the crazy personality of Bugs,
while others like
Chuck JonesChuck Jones concentrated more on the more
calmed-down gags. As far as plagiarism is concerned, McKimson claimed
the animators would always be looking at each other's sheets to see if
they could borrow some punchlines and cracks.[14]
Later years[edit]
Through the 1980s and 1990s, Jones was painting cartoon and parody
art, sold through animation galleries by his daughter's company, Linda
Jones Enterprises.[2] Jones was the creative consultant and character
designer for two
Raggedy AnnRaggedy Ann animated specials and the first Alvin and
the Chipmunks Christmas special A Chipmunk Christmas. He made a cameo
appearance in the 1984 film Gremlins[15] and directed the Bugs
Bunny/
Daffy DuckDaffy Duck animated sequences that bookend its sequel Gremlins
2: The New Batch (1990).[16] Jones directed animated sequences for
various features such as a lengthy sequence in the 1992 film Stay
Tuned[17] and a shorter one seen at the start of the 1993 film Mrs.
Doubtfire.[18] Also during the 1980s and 1990s Jones served on the
advisory board of the National Student Film Institute.[19][20]
Jones' final
Looney TunesLooney Tunes cartoon was
From Hare to EternityFrom Hare to Eternity in 1997,
which starred
Bugs BunnyBugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam, with
Greg BursonGreg Burson voicing
Bugs. The cartoon was dedicated to Friz Freleng, who had died in 1995.
Jones' final animation project was a series of 13 shorts starring a
timber wolf character he had designed in the 1960s named Thomas Timber
Wolf. The series was released online by
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. in 2000.[21] From
2001 until 2004,
Cartoon NetworkCartoon Network aired The
Chuck JonesChuck Jones Show which
features shorts directed by him. The show won the
Annie Award for
Outstanding Achievement in an Animated
SpecialSpecial Project.[22]
Death[edit]
Jones died of heart failure on February 22, 2002. He was cremated and
his ashes were scattered at sea.[2] After his death, the Looney Tunes
cartoon
Daffy DuckDaffy Duck for President, based on the book that Jones had
written and using Jones' style for the characters, originally
scheduled to be released in 2000,[23] was released in 2004 as part of
disc 3 of the
Looney TunesLooney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 DVD set.
Accolades[edit]
Jones was a historical authority as well as a major contributor to the
development of animation throughout the 20th century. He received an
honorary degree from
Oglethorpe UniversityOglethorpe University in 1993.[24] For his
contribution to the motion picture industry, Jones has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of FameHollywood Walk of Fame at 7011 Hollywood Blvd.[25]

Jones, whose work had been nominated eight times over his career for
an Oscar (winning the award three times: For Scent-imental Reasons, So
Much for So Little, and The Dot and the Line), received an Honorary
Academy Award in 1996 by the Board of Governors of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for "the creation of classic
cartoons and cartoon characters whose animated lives have brought joy
to our real ones for more than half a century." At that year's awards
show, Robin Williams, a self-confessed "Jones-aholic," presented the
Honorary award to Jones, calling him "The
Orson WellesOrson Welles of cartoons.",
and the audience gave Jones a standing ovation as he walked onto the
stage. For himself, a flattered Jones wryly remarked in his acceptance
speech, "Well, what can I say in the face of such humiliating
evidence? I stand guilty before the world of directing over three
hundred cartoons in the last fifty or sixty years. Hopefully, this
means you've forgiven me."[26] He received the Lifetime Achievement
Award at the World Festival of Animated Film -
Animafest ZagrebAnimafest Zagreb in
1988.[27]
Jones' life and legacy were celebrated January 12, 2012, with the
official grand opening of The
Chuck JonesChuck Jones Experience at Circus Circus
Las Vegas. Many of Jones' family welcomed celebrities, animation
aficionados and visitors to the new attraction when they opened the
attraction in an appropriate and unconventional way. Among those in
attendance were Jones' widow, Marian Jones; daughter Linda Clough; and
grandchildren Craig, Todd and Valerie Kausen.[28]
Publications[edit]

Sigall, Martha (2005). "The Boys of Termite Terrace". Living Life
Inside the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation. University
Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781578067497.
Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its
Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press; ISBN 0-19-516729-5.
Sigall, Martha (2005). "The Boys of Termite Terrace". Living Life
Inside the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation. University
Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781578067497.

Further reading[edit]

Kenner, Hugh. Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings, Portraits of American
Genius. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1994 1994. Free
Online – UC Press E-Books Collection
"Chuck Jones, in his own words" The final print interview with Chuck
Jones by Ron Barbagallo, Animation Art Conservation (1996, 1999 /
revised 2015)
"Chuck Jones" by John Canemaker from
CartoonistCartoonist PROfiles #45 (March
1980)
Chuck Jones: Three Cartoons (1953–1957) –
Roger EbertRoger Ebert discusses
Jones' three films in the United States
Library of CongressLibrary of Congress National
Film Registry.
Art Directors Club biography, portrait and images of work
Bob Clampetts interview for Funnyworld
The Jones-Avery Letter